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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#381

Post by quotemstr »

zwaps wrote: post #139

Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…

Give me a break. When companies censor speech HN likes, it's all about how we have to boycott companies to preserve our society. When it's speech HN doesn't like, it's all about how censorship is actually good and that companies are just "showing people the door" via their freedom of association.

People around here need to make up their minds. If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle, and that means tolerating speech you don't like too. You don't get to just lean on freedom of speech selectively.

The hypocrisy of supporting corporate censorship against things you like and opposing it against things you don't --- well, it's breathtaking.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#382

Post by dragonwriter »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #215

It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not. No easy answers. In this case, maybe there is a relatively simple rule: Supporting democracy must not in itself be regarded as offensive...

> It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not.

Calling for liberation of any territory is genuinely offensive to the government from which one is calling for it to be liberated, and to people who support that government (and often to those who support the territorial integrity of the relevant state event if they don't strongly support the government in question.)

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#383

Post by kryogen1c »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #330
IanSanders wrote: post #262

I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our area…

> Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott Just sounds like cancel culture to me. And it has horrible results.

Cancel culture is about _using_ censorship to limit free speech, which blizzard purposefully participated in on behalf of China, so we want to stop that limiting and encourage free speech, or at least not immediately ban someone for a year and 0 their prize money.

One fights for censorship, the other fights for freedom. I uninstalled hearthstone, which is the last activision blizzard product I used.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#384

Post by cicero »

groby_b wrote: post #374
whatshisface wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think back to before gay marriage was accepted as a culturally obvious fact, some of the arguments against it involved hating gays, but others didn't. Without the ability to tell which beliefs actually motivated his donation, it is not possible to discern if he was against gays or not. (I'll refrain from giving any specific examples in order to avoid starting that debate again, but I think most of us can remem…

It's kind of hard to say "you do not deserve to share your life with the person you love. You don't deserve to take care of them when they're sick. You don't deserve a family with them. Because you're gay" without actually hating gay people. Just because you don't call for somebody to be killed doesn't mean you don't hate them.

There are very solid reasons for seeing marriage as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman for the purpose of providing a stable home for the children that they conceive that has nothing to do with hating gays. This is something humans have understood for thousands of years, but only in my lifetime we seem to have forgotten.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#385

Post by Beltiras »

ekianjo wrote: post #334
Beltiras wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not giving them a red cent. They can be anti-democratic on someone else's dime.

You not giving them money wont hit their bottomline. However, you blaming them online and amplifying other people doing so is more likely to make them feel bad about it.

I'm also doing that. I know lots of people using their games. Liberal folks that will mind this.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#386

Post by ameister14 »

IanSanders wrote: post #262

I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our area…

>Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott, how and when. Less informed would be able to make an impact without having to do research (which not everyone would do equally well)

You do realize how hilarious that is juxtaposed to the Chinese government, which is literally a 'morality authority,' right?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#387

Post by redleggedfrog »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #352
redleggedfrog wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available." Wait, what? A boycott is not doing something. It takes no time, you just choose to do something different, and let people know why you made the choice. I stopped playing Hearthstone,…

No, boycotting something entails changing your lifestyle to avoid something. For hearthstone players, that means stop partaking in one of their hobbies. You aren't boycotting something because you are quitting it, anyways. Also, you're kinda doing the thing where you go "Ugh, it's so easy, c'mon people! I never even played Heartstone in my life. See? It's not that hard to quit over moral principals!"

I have over 500 hours in Hearthstone. I played it on Saturday. It was my main online game. I haven't played it since.

And yes, it's still an easy call. I was in Hong Kong for quite a bit when I was younger. It's a glorious place. Or was, I haven't been back. I don't approve of the Chinese government, nor the United States relationship with China. We've compromised our principals for economic gain (I'm American). Hong Kong should get to stay democratic if that's their choice.

Note I was specific about disapproval of the Chinese government. The Chinese people are an amazing group with a wonderful culture and I appreciate them immensely. But they are governed by communist goons.

And you're right, I'm not quitting Hearthstone. If they say something akin to what the NBA is saying now, I might consider playing again. For now, no.

edit: "say" for "stay" typo.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#388

Post by jplayer01 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #180
jplayer01 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've wasted too much time on HN arguing with people who simply don't believe China isn't as bad as portrayed, and believe everything that comes up here or on other sites is nothing but anti-Chinese propaganda. There are plenty of people who are so jaded that they're unwilling to condemn China for all the immoral things they do, much less economic or political behaviours that aren'…

>but do have clear negative impact on the Western sphere of influence and economic status. And this is such a problem that you think the US should take actions to try and overthrow their government? Even considering how terribly most US regime changes damage a country, and the horrible civil wars that have accompanied the previous Chinese collapses? >As bad as the US is, I don't want a country run by such an authorit…

> And this is such a problem that you think the US should take actions to try and overthrow their government?

I didn't say that. Judging by the successes of forced regime changes in recent history, I'd say there's little actual practical value in doing so. I'm a pragmatist as much as I am an idealist. There are other options to counterbalance China's growing influence and power. The TPP was the most obvious option, but the US scuttled it and abandoned all the Asian countries who were relying on them to protect them from encroaching Chinese pressure.

> I'm not thrilled at the prospect of a Chinese super power either. However, I also view the US as a rather terrible superpower, and unlike in China I have some amount of agency to change that.

Believe me. I'd like nothing more than for the US to gain even a tiny fraction of the moral values and character that they traditionally pretended to have. Still, I prefer a world order where the US is in charge. As abhorrent as they may be, they're the lesser evil here. Unfortunately, Trump and the Republican party are eroding what little faith (and it's miniscule at this point) I have in the US ... if there were any other, better option, I'd be really fucking happy.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#389

Post by _bxg1 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #286
cryptica wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is very simple. The government should take possession of any company that grows beyond a maximum size and distribute the shares to the public.

Best the "commies" by being more communist than they are, love it.

Today's China is communist in name only. They literally arrested the president of Peking University's Marxist society on ideological grounds: https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-...

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#390

Post by ViViDboarder »

goatinaboat wrote: post #150
nabla9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Chinese owners? Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-... AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned…

How about Chinese owners? That’s a tricky one. The “woke” don’t care about all the Saudi money in Uber and WeWork despite that regimes hideous treatment of gays, women, dissidents and so on.

To be fair, those companies are gushing money so bad that using them is only going to cause more losses for Saudi investors.
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